Disgraceful. No respect.
What a waste of perfectly good salami.
‘sup?
I might be playing with fire here. I might be turning my F-14 towards the control tower for as-yet-unauthorised low-altitude pass.
I am referring to an article in The Age about Victoria Police settling a case concerning the practice of “racial profiling of Afro-Australian men”.
I am refering to the first time I have ever seen the term Afro-Australian in print in all seriousness.
My dad had a perm in the early 80s. I think it had something to do with Air Supply being famous and my mother’s nagging skills. I’m not exactly sure what made him do it but those were different times and you could call his old hair-do an Afro. You might go so far as to call it a bad one, but that would imply some degree of profiling. Anyway, I think I just found out I am descended from an Afro-Australian.
What form do I fill out to get money?
Sorry folks, eurozone’s closed…
… the moose out front should have told you.
Wake up and smell the paella
“Greek bond swap paves way for rescue”
OK, let’s look at what happened overnight. Greek debtors mostly agreed to take a hit on their bonds. These bonds are covered by Greek law which just recently was changed, to make it the case that if over 50% of bond holders accepted a reduction in face value, then all holders must accept the same deal whether they like it or not. This is the Collective Action Clause (CAC) that most articles in the lead-up to the latest ‘deal’ skimmed over or didn’t mention. This is somewhat important. The investors which held out on the haircut are those with insurance in the form of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) covering their bets on Greek debt, which means that whichever bank issued the CDS would have to pay out. They’d much rather have a full insurance payout rather than a 50%-or-whatever fall on the bond value. Of course, the CDS issuing banks have their own position in CDS to cover the risk of paying out on Greek debt, so they’ll receive something and well as pay out, but in the end someone will have to pay. Remember in all this too, that bank balance sheets have sovereign debt marked at values closer to purchase prices than today’s sell prices. (Which is only OK for the ECB, which in its EFSF deal swapped its old Greek bonds for a newly-invented Greek bond that absolutely, guaranteed, no-questions-asked always retains it full value. This type of bond was structured by the ECB, and is only available to the ECB. Yes, it is as ridiculously dodgy as it sounds…. but at least they showed enough restraint to not give themselves a profit on the deal). Anyway, the important question now is whether the CAC is deemed to trigger a default and put into play the CDS’ written for such an event.
If it does, then the banks are gone.
If it doesn’t, then the market for EU sovereign debt will be officially one where any insurance to hedge the bet is simply worthless, and private bondholders will take all the pain of any debt restructure because the ECB has shown that it is completely willing to change the rules to protect itself at the cost of others. The sovereign bond market will dry up overnight.
Remember, this is all to secure a bailout.
As a backdrop to this, here’s the maths: Greece already received a bailout of EUR110b in 2010. Greek GDP in 2010 shrank 4.5%. In 2011, after the ‘help’ of the bailout it shrank by 6.8%. So the Greek economy accelerated its decline after the help of imposed austerity. The latest bailout will be for EUR130b. That’s EUR240b in new debt all up. The Greek economy is worth EUR227b. The country has had no positive growth in five years, but the latest ‘save’ requires everything to be fixed in two years. Even before the latest bailout has hit the fan, the country is experiencing strikes, protests, and riots.
Yeah, some rescue.
Spain and Italy are next. Multiply all the numbers by 10 to get what will be involved when these countries have to fund their debt. Do you reckon they’ll submit to all this stuff Greece has? Not likely.
Bye-bye euro.
30 MINUTES LATER UPDATE: Looks like we don’t have to wait for Spain to tell the EU/ECB/IMF where to go… things are getting real interesting right now. Wall Street Journal reports that Greece has defaulted.
The Milky Bar Kid rides again
Well played, Xiao Rudd, well played.
I must give a sly nod to the little prat. He’s done well. He’ll be back. Our beloved leader is about 6 months past the use-by date I gave her when the childless, unmarried, middle-aged and ball-breaking woman living with a male hairdresser (but not a lesbian, why would you ever think she was?) won the election.
I was right about Ashton and Demi, I will be right about Julia.
Backsliding, how do you do?
These slippery people, gonna see you through
The stuff of the last post made me dizzy, you know. Not only because the document to seal a document fraud case involving shonky signatures somehow managed to get signed before it was written, but also because the deal involved banks paying out billions to aggreived parties.
The banks do not have that kind of cash.
The US Fed will no doubt quietly provide it to them to maintain the pretence of financial sector solvency. Whilst it’s currenly being overshadowed by European sovereign debt problems, many US states and municipalities are plain broke. USD26b from the Fed (via Wall St) will certainly help with that. The money is not likely to go beyond state budgets, and dudded home-owners should not expect to receive a cent from the settlement. State debt problems are thus solved through more lending.
It’s like the serpent eating its own tail, the ouroboros. Which reminds me of eurobonds…
In Europe, we have had the situation of Greece issuing bonds which no-one wants. The price drops and the ECB is then forced to come in and buy the bonds. The ECB last week announced that it will now sell those bonds back to the EU’s European Financial Stability Fund. The EU will then loan money to Greece. Greece will then issue bonds…
Fitting that in the same week that this development came out, a UK paper reported the story of a policeman who spent twenty minutes giving chase to a suspicious character, which turned out to be himself. The policeman was given directions during the chase by a remote operator of CCTV surveillance , who kept telling his colleague that he was “hot on the heels” of the suspect. Much laughter ensued when the error was realised. Though it is somewhat heartening to find out that the imposition of an Orwellian police state does involve the odd chuckle (as least for those with the uniforms and stun-guns) it is still sadly reflective of the world’s general sanity.
Right now, turn like a wheel inside a wheel.
Here she comes, Lady luck again…
A story that has come to a nice, symmetrical denouement is the story of the many home loans in the US which were executed with an automatic signature on behalf of issuing banks.
Many US mortgages were ‘robosigned’ by computer on behalf of banks, rather than an actual person. It was noticed that one ‘Linda Green’ had been quite a busy woman, signing bank loans all over the country, and even with a heavy task schedule still managing to work for a few different banks… and have a few different styles of signature for her name. With no actual person countersigning, the contracts were argued to be invalid. Obviously this was problematic for the banks attempting to repossess when payments on those mortgage went truant. Foreclosuregate it of course came to be labelled.
As recent US banking tradition has it though, a government settlement (tax-payer funded bailout) was structured to resolve this. The USD25b deal was announced by Obama on Thursday, as it had been approved and signed by all required state Auditors General. On Friday it was revealed that the full details could not be released because a “fully authorized, legally binding deal has not yet been inked.”
The deal to resolve a problem of document fraud is signed by AGs, announced by the President, and then, finally, will be actually written up.
My head is spinning.
I am so grateful to live in a big wool producing nation
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.
Presented without comment: Bloomberg has reported, just a few days ago on December 23, that a US District Court has ruled that Iran was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Iran. With an “N”. Iran. Not commenting there, just clarifying. Iran is next door to Iraq, the country which had the sh*t bombed out of it in response to 9/11. Oh, it’s also next door to Afghanistan, another country which has had the sh*t bombed out of it in response to 9/11. Those are clarifications, not comments.
Happy new year.
Back off man, I do yoga
NOVA magazine is a free rag that is distibuted in alternative shops, health food stores and places like that. I like organic food. It tastes better. My personal beliefs on metaphysical matters I won’t go into, suffice to say that I think NOVA caters to a well-intentioned but ultimately moronic crowd. Your average NOVA reader is probably just as brainwashed and conformist in absolute fundamental beliefs as the average man on the street, just with a few Deepak Chopra books on the shelf and a few yoga classes under the belt.
Anyway, courtesy of the last trip to pick up organic peanut butter, here is a little something from the latest edition:
“GROW LOCAL: The worldwide movement towards eating local, seasonal and sustainable foods is receiving innovative support from the Illawarra area in NSW…. And we learn that local greens are already winning culinary favour in the home of gastronomy with Warrigal Greens grown in the Illawarra being airfreighted to France and served in Paris restaurants.”
I guess the local/low-miles food must have been flown overseas on an astral plane, not one of the normal ‘carbon-emitting’ airline ones.
Rounded off and simplified 